This round of Eurobarometer surveys focused on health
issues, public security, awareness of consumer protection legislation,
sickness benefits allocation, and attitudes toward the police. In
addition, respondents were queried on a few standard Eurobarometer
measures, such as whether they attempted to persuade others close to
them to share their views on subjects they held strong opinions about
and whether they discussed political matters, and how they viewed the
need for societal change. Respondents provided information about their
personal health care, including their general state of health, number
of hospital stays, types of examinations received, and whether they
had been on a diet, as well as their perceptions of heart
disease. Respondents also answered questions about the health care
system in their countries and indicated how well health care was run,
to whom the government should provide health care, whether the
government should spend more money on health care, and if they were
willing to pay more taxes or have the government spend less on other
things in order to contribute to health care. A number of questions
concentrated on sickness benefits allocation. Questions concerning
public security included how safe respondents felt walking alone near
their homes, how often they had witnessed drug-related problems near
their homes, if their homes had been broken into, and whether they had
been attacked or seriously threatened. Respondents were also asked
about their awareness of consumer protection legislation adopted or
introduced by the European Union (EU) in areas such as import, postal
services, toy safety, pricing, packaging, advertising, contracts,
holiday conditions, and court proceedings. Opinions were also
elicited on the police, type of contact respondents had with the
police, and the cooperation between the police forces from EU member
states. In addition, respondents answered a series of questions
concerning their views on employment, unemployment, and gender
equality. These data are reported in a separate collection,
EUROBAROMETER 44.3OVR: EMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND GENDER EQUALITY,
FEBRUARY-APRIL 1996 (ICPSR 2443). Demographic and other background
information provided includes respondent's age, gender, nationality,
marital status, left-right political self-placement, occupation, age
at completion of education, household income, size of household, car
ownership, region of residence, and subjective size of community.

This round of Eurobarometer surveys focused on health
issues, public security, awareness of consumer protection legislation,
sickness benefits allocation, and attitudes toward the police. In
addition, respondents were queried on a few standard Eurobarometer
measures, such as whether they attempted to persuade others close to
them to share their views on subjects they held strong opinions about
and whether they discussed political matters, and how they viewed the
need for societal change. Respondents provided information about their
personal health care, including their general state of health, number
of hospital stays, types of examinations received, and whether they
had been on a diet, as well as their perceptions of heart
disease. Respondents also answered questions about the health care
system in their countries and indicated how well health care was run,
to whom the government should provide health care, whether the
government should spend more money on health care, and if they were
willing to pay more taxes or have the government spend less on other
things in order to contribute to health care. A number of questions
concentrated on sickness benefits allocation. Questions concerning
public security included how safe respondents felt walking alone near
their homes, how often they had witnessed drug-related problems near
their homes, if their homes had been broken into, and whether they had
been attacked or seriously threatened. Respondents were also asked
about their awareness of consumer protection legislation adopted or
introduced by the European Union (EU) in areas such as import, postal
services, toy safety, pricing, packaging, advertising, contracts,
holiday conditions, and court proceedings. Opinions were also
elicited on the police, type of contact respondents had with the
police, and the cooperation between the police forces from EU member
states. In addition, respondents answered a series of questions
concerning their views on employment, unemployment, and gender
equality. These data are reported in a separate collection,
EUROBAROMETER 44.3OVR: EMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND GENDER EQUALITY,
FEBRUARY-APRIL 1996 (ICPSR 2443). Demographic and other background
information provided includes respondent's age, gender, nationality,
marital status, left-right political self-placement, occupation, age
at completion of education, household income, size of household, car
ownership, region of residence, and subjective size of community.

Universe:
Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 15 EU
member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,
Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) Three respondents (ICPSR CASE ID 15073, 15129, and
15134) with non-EU nationalities were permitted to complete
interviews. If desired, these cases can be excluded from
analysis. (2) Caution should be exercised when using V54, V55, V56,
V57, V58, and V59 (Q119A, Q119A recoded, Q119B, Q119B recoded, Q119C,
and Q119C recoded). Inconsistencies have been found such that the
number of nights spent in the hospital (Q119B and Q119C) is smaller
than the number of different times spent overnight in a hospital
(Q119A). Also, respondents who answered "don't know" to Q119A (code 99
in V54 and code 10 in V55) should not have been asked Q119B and
Q119C. ICPSR has recoded cases not following this protocol as
follows:
ICPSR CASE ID 8763: Code 0 in V56 recoded to 997 (INAP),
Code 8 in V57 recoded to 99 (INAP).
ICPSR CASE ID 13724: Code 14 in V56 recoded to 997 (INAP),
Code 7 in V57 recoded to 99 (INAP).
ICPSR CASE ID 6286: Code 30 in V56 recoded to 997 (INAP),
Code 7 in V57 recoded to 99 (INAP).
ICPSR CASE ID 8634: Code 60 in V56 recoded to 997 (INAP),
Code 7 in V57 recoded to 99 (INAP).
ICPSR CASE ID 10704: Code 999 in V56 recoded to 997 (INAP),
Code 10 in V57 recoded to 99 (INAP), Code 0 in V58
recoded to 997 (INAP), Code 8 in V59 recoded to 99
(INAP).
(3) The complete questionnaire is being provided for both
Eurobarometer 44.3 (ICPSR 6752) and Eurobarometer 44.3OVR (ICPSR
2443). Response data, however, are divided between the two studies in
the following manner. EB44.3: Q.1 to Q.4B, Q.5B, Q.111 to Q.155,
demographic and protocol questions, and EB44.3OVR: Q.1 to Q.110,
demographic and protocol questions. (4) The codebook is provided by
ICPSR as an ASCII text file and as a Portable Document Format (PDF)
file, and the data collection instrument is provided by ICPSR as a PDF
file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Sample:
Multistage national probability samples.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Performed consistency checks.

Standardized missing values.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1998-07-15

Version History:

2002-05-29 The data have been further processed by ICPSR and the
SPSS data definition statements have been updated. Also, a standard
machine-readable codebook (PDF and text) and SAS data definition statements
have been added, and the data collection instrument is now available
as a PDF file.